World
War I began in Europe, placing additional responsibilities
on the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), which was the
forerunner of the FBI. On April 6, 1917, Congress declared
war on
Germany and President Woodrow Wilson authorized
the BOI to detain enemy
aliens.

June 15, 1917

Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917.
The act forbade espionage, interference with the draft,
or attempts to discourage loyalty. It greatly increased
the BOI's ability to deal with espionage and subversion
during the war, but a lack of personnel hampered Bureau
efforts in enforcing the law.

March 1, 1932

The Bureau initiated the international exchange
of fingerprint data with friendly foreign governments.
Because of the rise of tension in Europe, this program
was halted in the late 1930s. It was not reinstituted until
well after World War II.

May 24, 1936

President Roosevelt called Director Hoover
to a morning meeting to discuss his concerns about subversive
activity in the United States. He asked Hoover to report
on the activities of Nazi and communist groups. The FBI
made these investigations at the request of the Secretary
of State for the President.

1939

President Roosevelt assigned responsibility
for investigating espionage, sabotage, and other subversive
activities jointly to the FBI, the Military Intelligence
Division of the War Department (MID), and the Office of
Naval Intelligence (ONI).

June 24, 1940

The FBI established a Special Intelligence
Service (SIS) at President Roosevelt's request. Under the
SIS, the Bureau dispatched agents to countries throughout
the Western Hemisphere (except Panama). FBI agents in South
and Central America gathered intelligence information and
worked to prevent Axis espionage, sabotage, and propaganda
efforts aimed against the United States and its allies.
Some Special Agents assigned to posts in Europe, Canada,
and Latin America began acting in an official liaison capacity.
After President Truman closed the SIS in 1946, these agent
liaisons formed the basis of the FBI's Legal Attaché (Legat)
Program.

December 7, 1941

The Japanese bombed the U.S. naval facility
at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In response, the United States
entered World War II. J. Edgar Hoover ordered existing
FBI war plans put into effect and Attorney General Francis
Biddle authorized the Bureau to act against dangerous enemy
aliens. The FBI immediately went on a 24-hour schedule,
and within 72 hours had taken 3,846 enemy aliens into custody.
Seized contraband included short-wave radios, dynamite,
weapons, and ammunition.

June 12, 1942

Four German saboteurs led by George John Dasch landed from a U-boat on the beach
near Amagansett, Long Island, New York. Five days later, a second team of 4 German
saboteurs, led by Edward Kerling, landed at Ponte Vedra Beach in Florida. Dasch
turned himself in at the New York Field Office two days after landing. Within
two weeks, the FBI captured all 8 saboteurs.

May 30, 1945

Between January 1940 and May 1945, the Bureau investigated 19,299 alleged cases
of sabotage. Sabotage in some form was found in 2,282 incidences, primarily acts
of spite, carelessness, malicious mischief, and the like. During World War II,
not a single act of enemy-directed sabotage was successful in the United States.

September 1945

Soviet military intelligence code-clerk
Igor Guzenko defected to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
(RCMP). One month later, Elizabeth Bentley, a courier for
two Soviet spy rings in Washington, DC, turned herself
into the FBI at New Haven, Connecticut. Both Soviet agents
brought a wealth of information about Soviet intelligence
networks in Canada and America.

August 1946

Congress passed the Atomic Energy Act making
the FBI responsible for investigating the backgrounds of
persons who were to access restricted nuclear data. The
FBI was also responsible for investigation of criminal violations of this act.

1948

The FBI began a close liaison with the U.S.
Army Signals Intelligence Service, the National Security
Agency's predecessor, on the exploitation of Soviet messages
that were being decrypted and decoded by military intelligence personnel. The
FBI and the NSA were able to identify several hundred persons connected with
Soviet intelligence work against the US and its allies. The project continued
until 1980 when it was shut down. Among the prominent cases to come from these
messages was the Judith Coplon case, the Klaus Fuchs case, and the Rosenberg
case.

June 21, 1957

The FBI arrested Colonel Rudolf Ivanovich
Abel, a Soviet espionage agent who was operating in the
United States without diplomatic cover.

1985

A series of high profile espionage
arrests characterized 1985 as "the Year
of the Spy." In May, the John Walker Spy Ring was arrested. Former Navy
personnel John Walker, Jerry Whitworth, Arthur Walker, and Michael Walker were
convicted of or pled guilty to passing classified material to the Soviet Union.
On November 21, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a Navy intelligence analyst, was arrested
for spying for Israel. On November 23, Larry Wu Tai Chin, a former CIA analyst,
was arrested on charges of spying for the People's Republic of China since 1952.
On November 25, a third major spy, former National Security Agency employee William
Pelton, was arrested and charged with selling military secrets to the Soviets.

September 13, 1987

Fawaz Younis became the first suspected foreign terrorist arrested by the Bureau
for a crime perpetrated against Americans on foreign soil. The Bureau made the
arrest under provisions of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, which
assigned certain extraterritorial authorities to the FBI. In March 1989, a U.S.
District Court sentenced Younis to 30 years for the hijacking of a Jordanian
plane carrying two Americans.

February 21, 1994

FBI Agents arrested Aldrich Hazen Ames,
a 30-year Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) veteran, and
his wife, Maria del Rosario Casas Ames, on espionage charges.
Ames's crimes began in April 1985, and resulted in the
deaths of at least 10 Soviet sources of the CIA and FBI.
Other sources were imprisoned and more than 100 intelligence
operations were compromised. Ames provided thousands of
classified documents to the Soviet Union and later, the
Russian Republic.

April 19, 1995

On the second anniversary of the Waco tragedy, a truck bomb exploded at the Alfred
P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 169 people and
destroying the 9-story building. President Clinton designated the FBI as lead
law enforcement agency in the case. The U.S. Marshals Service, the Treasury Department,
and many other state and local agencies contributed to the investigation. The
Federal Emergency Management Agency also coordinated its efforts with the FBI,
as did the armed forces, federal community mental health experts, and the General
Services Administration.

August 7, 1998

Terrorist bombing attacks on U.S. Embassies
in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed
hundreds of U.S., Kenyan, and Tanzanian citizens. A Joint
Terrorist
Task Force, composed of the FBI and other federal, state, and local authorities
cooperated in the investigation.

April 1, 1999

Taiwanese-based Four Pillars Enterprises
became the first foreign company convicted of economic
espionage under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. This
landmark investigation was conducted by the Cleveland Division.

April 5, 1999

"Top Ten" fugitives Abdel Basset
Ali Al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah were surrendered
by Libya to Dutch authorities to be tried before a Scottish
court for charges in connection with the 12/21/98 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103,
which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland.

June 7, 1999

Usama bin Laden was added to the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list.
Bin Laden was charged in connection with the U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa.

January 19, 2000

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District
of New York announced indictments of Mokhtar Haouari and
Abdel Ghani Meskini in the "Borderbom" investigation,
a wide-ranging terrorist conspiracy to bomb American sites
during the January 1, 2000, millennium celebrations. The
two were charged with collaborating with Ahmed Ressam.
The FBI/New York Police Department Joint Terrorist Task
Force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian
Security and Intelligence Service, and Canada's Department
of Justice assisted in the investigation.

September 11, 2001

Following the massive terrorist attacks
against New York and Washington, the FBI dedicated 7,000
of its 11,000 Special Agents and thousands of FBI support
personnel to the PENTTBOM investigation. "PENTTBOM" is short for Pentagon,
Twin Towers Bombing.

October 2001

Director Mueller ordered all FBI field offices to create joint terrorism task
forces/regional terrorism task forces to coordinate counterterrorism efforts
across the United States. The first such task force, in New York, was formally
created in 1982. A new FBI Priority list was also issued. The top three priorities
were: 1) Protect the United States from terrorist attack; 2) Protect the United
States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage; and 3) Protect
the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes.

October 26, 2001

President Bush signed the USA PATRIOT (Uniting
and Strengthening American by Providing Appropriate Tools
Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act of 2001.
This anti-terrorism law provided the FBI with additional
resources to hire new agents and critical support personnel,
employ court approved wiretaps against potential terrorists
more easily, seek additional information about potential
terrorists more easily, share criminal investigative information
with counterterrorism investigators in other government
officials, and work with other government agencies to secure
our borders and attack international money laundering.

December 3, 2001

An Office of Intelligence (OI) was created within the FBI's Counterterrorism
Division (CTD). This structure and capability significantly enhanced our counterterrorism
operations and those of our partners.

January 30, 2003

The OI concept was extended across all FBI
programs—Criminal (CID), Cyber
(CyD), Counterterrorism (CT), and Counterintelligence (CD). Intelligence authorities
were unified under a new FBI-wide Office of Intelligence (OI) led by an Executive
Assistant Director for Intelligence (EAD-I). The OI leveraged Intelligence Community
best practices to direct all FBI intelligence activities.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Upon the United States ("The
9/11 Commission") report was released on this date. The report reviewed
our efforts to date and provided recommendations to further strengthen the FBI's
intelligence capability.

November 16, 2004

The Presidential Memorandum for the
Attorney General, titled "Further Strengthening
Federal Bureau of Investigation Capabilities," directed the FBI to create
the Directorate of Intelligence (DI).

December 8, 2004

The President signed The Consolidated Appropriations
Act, 2005. The act directed the FBI to create a Directorate
of Intelligence with “broad and clear authority over
intelligence-related functions.”

December 17, 2004

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 supported the direction
that the FBI has taken since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The
act formally acknowledged the significant progress made by the FBI in improving
its intelligence capabilities and directed the FBI to create a DI. It firmly
established and expanded the DI's authority over the management of the FBI's
intelligence functions, including oversight of field intelligence operations
and coordination of human source development and management.

February 28, 2005

The FBI issued an electronic communication
formally establishing the DI.

March 31, 2005

The Commission on the Intelligence
Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of
Mass Destruction (WMD Commission) issued a report recommending
that
the FBI create a new “National Security Service” under a single Executive
Assistant Director. This service would include the FBI's Counterterrorism and
Counterintelligence Divisions and its Directorate of Intelligence, and would
be subject to the coordination and budget authorities of the Director of National
Intelligence (DNI).

June 28, 2005

The President issued a memorandum
directing the Attorney General to implement
the WMD Commission’s recommendation by combining the missions, capabilities,
and resources of the counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and intelligence
elements of the FBI into a new National Security Service headed by a senior FBI
official. The memo instructed the Attorney General to assign the new service
the “principal responsibility within the FBI for the collection, processing,
analysis, and dissemination of intelligence to further enhance the security of
the Nation.”

September 12, 2005

The FBI stood up the National Security Branch
(NSB), consisting of the Bureau’s Counterterrorism
Division (CTD), the Counterintelligence Division (CD),
and the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), headed by an
Executive Assistant Director. The creation of the NSB combined
the
FBI’s national security workforce and mission under
one leadership umbrella.

June 5, 2006

The FBI received notification that Congress had officially approved the NSB as
part of a larger reorganization of the FBI.

July 26, 2006

The FBI established the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD) as part
of the NSB to integrate WMD components that were previously spread throughout
the FBI.